FLASH! Guilford engine stuck on Watertown Branch!!

Of course they didnt fix it. Id put money on it that they killed their customers contract and abandoned the line.

I would think they would fix it in the summer where its not frozen or muddy, if they fix it at all.

I have to wonder if smaller, lighter power would have snuck by this soft spot without incident (?) Seems like an EMD SW or and Alco S from the old days would have had a better chance.
What sort of power would have been used on this branch 25-30 years ago, in B&M days?

Not sure, but my boyfriend and his brother used to see similar power in West Cambridge yard, which leads to the branch, in the very eary 1980s.

Here is one of the slides they took



Not sure if these engines also went down what was left of the Watertown Branch, but I wouldn't be suprised if they did. I would love to see more images of the area from when it was active!

JD

I remember seeing GP7s or 9s in the early eighties. At that time the B&M went all they way to M.J. PEROLI and Sons just outside of Watertown Square to deliver bricks. Other customers in the 80s and early 90s were Barker Steel (reinforcing rods), S.B. Green, (bricks). Then way back in the 60s and 70s there was the company that made Underwood Devil Ham, Lois Shepherd trucks, Watertown Arsenal, BF Goodrich, AT&T among others.

I wonder if Guilford will say to Newlywed Foods, pay to fix the tracks or forget about anymore service. Would the state ever help out in the interest of protecting jobs at Newlywed? Send an MBTA crew to fix the branch.


AB

From the 1960s into the 1980s, B&M GP7s and GP9s were standard power on both the Watertown Branch and its disconnected other end, the Bemis Branch out of Waltham. Up until the early 1970s you might also see an Alco RS3, and on rare occasions yard switchers (usually SW9s) covered the jobs.

Into the early Guilford years the B&M had some lightweight SW1s on the roster, but they weren't regularly used on the Watertown Branch, at least in the time frame I'm familiar with.

This i sgoing to be a complex one. I doubt that there's ever going to be any hope for new business on the line. About the only industry left that could ship by rail is the cement plant on Grove St., but I believe its located too far from the tracks to reach them even if they wanted to. Beyond Newlywed, I'd imagine that it'd be hard to get past all the opposition to having more trains in town. The ROW is fairly obstructed starting at the Arlington St. grade crossing, and shortly after that, you're running smack into the big box retail stores on Arsenal St. Most of the rest of the route up until you get into West Cambridge is residential. There's certainly no place to put in new businesses that would ship by rail, and even West cambridge has got to be too expensive (real estate wise) to be considered for new industrial development.

I'm not sure what either the town of Watertown's or the City of Cambridge's stance is on the line. Bike interests want to get their hands on the line, to use it to connect the Minuteman Bike Trail to the Charles River Park system. They will be trying hard to get the state and/or municipalities to get their hands on the ROW for a bike trail.

Finally, it will probably come down to a question of how expensive it is for newlywed to either relocate, or ship by a different means. The question that will no doubt be asked, is what is cheapest: shipping by truck, shipping by rail and fixing the branch, or moving the plant somewhere with better rail access. Look for GRS to offer a good deal on rail service if they move somewhere easily served off of a GRS main.

A few years ago a Lexus dealership just west of School Street plopped a glass building right on top of the ROW. There is a bike path on one side of the building. This is about where SB Green had a ramp for unloading bricks from boxcars. The tracks are still in today all the way to schools street and I remember about 5 years ago Guilford's last train in were gondolas to take the remaining rail from school street west. Of course today Guilford does not go west of Newlywed which is a few yards east of Arlington St. Now I don't think they plan to go west of Alwife.

AB

Guilford

All the other derailments in the last few years never stopped GRS from continuing to crawl out to Newlyweds and I doubt this one will either. A little ballast in the derailment area wouldn't hurt though.

Is it really so expensive to fix the line? I mean, they have the equipment, and crews would be working someplace anyway. How much does ballast cost??

It's just not going to happen.

How did they pull everything out? Did they drag the engine or put it back on track?

FYI, 354, the engine involved in this was on the GRS track at the BET (I do not remember its exact designation, it is the farthest track from the BET) this morning.
- Stephen

mick wrote:It's just not going to happen. It is not a matter of cost. Boston and Maine, and it's succesor, Guilford, have been pulling out of the Boston area since the 1970's. All the buisness has dried up down there, and the cities and towns, especially Cambridge, don't want any new heavy industries, so why should Guilford bother? When I was a kid, that whole area around Alewife T station was covered with Steel fabrication plants, scrapyards, warehouses, and rail yards. The B&M yard in W. Cambridge had about 10 tracks and was always full of cars. There were always switchers working in there or road jobs setting off or picking up. To a railroad buff, it was great. But to the people of Cambridge, it was an eyesore. And they don't want it back.

All good points. Cambridge and Boston are, sadly for us, just not industrial cities anymore. The economic engines are high tech and education and health care, which all thrive on being close to where the intellectual centers are, of which Cambridge is one. That drives up property values, to the point that even if an industrial concern wants to locate in the Boston area, they can't make the economic justification for locating in Cambridge or Watertown, when Billericia or Nashua somewhere near Springfield will work as well. With real estate so expensive, and so many intereted parties that want to turn it into offices or housing, the businesses that feed railroads traffic will find it hard to compete. I know I'm getting even more pessimistic here, but I would bet that for a lot of your industry that's left in places like Cambridge and Watertown, they are in their location until "the deal they can't refuse" comes through for their property.

But, on the bright note -- let's all remember things like just how much of the B&M you can still ride a passenger train over in 2004 -- something you can't say about a lot of roads.

There is only one reason